


By Any Other Name

by Brenda



Series: The Lazy Hazy Summer Daze Writing Challenge [6]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, The Lazy Hazy Summer Daze Writing Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-02
Updated: 2013-08-02
Packaged: 2017-12-22 05:16:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brenda/pseuds/Brenda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was beholden to no one, and only deigned to call one man her equal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the sixth day of the **[The Lazy Hazy Summer Daze Writing Challenge](http://azewewish.livejournal.com/1074772.html)** for [](http://tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com/)**tsuki_no_bara** , who asked for original fic, and fire.

Her name, once forbidden to even say in public, has been lost to time. All record of it was stricken, and it was said that to even whisper it was to invite a swift death from the old, mad king. He tried, oh how he tried, to erase her from memory, to erase her existence entirely, but it was a futile effort, for names are ephemeral, but her deeds have lived on in eternity.

Heretic, some called her. Sorceress. To her village, she was an exceptional healer, a saint who performed miracles of both the body and earth, who could control the very elements with powers heretofore unseen; to others in the kingdom, she was a witch who peddled in the Dark Arts and drained the land of precious resources in her bloodthirsty quest for power. With hair as bright as flame and skin as pale as ivory and eyes that flashed emerald, she was beautiful beyond words, and that beauty was surely her greatest curse. For, though she was lovely and fair of face and limb, she was beholden to no one, loyal only to herself, and no man could contain her. And weak men will always fear those they cannot control.

But she had no use for the fears of the weak-willed and weak-minded. Hers was a realm outside the dominion of petty men and their petty concerns – she was nature's mistress alone, and answered to no king or lord. She ruled no one, and allowed no one to rule her.

But her story would be incomplete without mention of her mate. For there was one – oh, there was one – who dared to lay claim to her heart and to meet her as an equal and respected all that was different and powerful about her. The king's only son and heir, he was, tall and powerful of build, with eyes as dark as night and hair to match. And their first meeting in the meadow between her village and his towering castle was said to have shaken the foundations of the earth itself with the force of destinies colliding and becoming one. Upon that meadow, two great warriors – each fierce in their own way – circled and tested each other on a battlefield where they discovered that sometimes that the greatest victory could be found in surrender.

That their union was forbidden was of little consequence to them. That she was an outcast, ostracized and feared and worshiped, hated and revered in kind – that he was of noble birth, betrothed to another of noble birth, and had been raised to lead a kingdom, the only hope of a powerful family – was of no importance. That theirs was a courtship doomed from the start, a tragic lament best left for bards and mistrels, held no sway to the power of the love in their hearts.

It was said that, when the king discovered their secret marriage – for marry they did, with the earth and sky as witness, speaking the bonding words of the Old Days to a high priest who sympathized with their plight – his rage was boundless and without mercy. That he ordered her village plundered and razed to the ground in punishment, that he stripped his son of all weapons and power and had him locked in the highest tower, that he brought her forth before the High Council on charges of witchcraft and of beguiling and seducing his son for material gain.

But their love would not be denied, and the forces of fate are even mightier than a vengeful king's wrath. For the lovers had unexpected allies within and outside of the castle gates, and destiny itself on their side. Their daring midnight escape is still talked about in whispers around campfires and in secret in smoky pubs, and its legend has only grown in the retelling. The king, it was whispered, went mad with grief over losing his only heir, and locked himself in the same tower where he'd imprisoned his son, never to be seen again. Those that fled the village in terror made their way across the river and into a neighboring kingdom, where they were given asylum and welcomed with open arms.

And while the lovers left no clue of their whereabouts behind them when they fled, and, indeed, seemed to have disappeared without a trace, overnight on the meadow where they met, wild roses bloomed, riotous and colorful and free.

***


End file.
